Jabberjay
by SomeoneBeautiful
Summary: Pointless, random one-shots of basically any Hunger Games character. Comment a character and your preferred idea and I'll write it.


**A/N: Pointless one-shot before the Hunger Games in which Katniss' life was changed forever. Prim and her friend Lana are around ten. Peeta and Katniss are fourteen.**

Dark clothes. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Ducked heads and whispered conversations. Girls with long eyelashes and clean faces. Large boys with thick hands and heavy steps.

Primrose Everdeen felt badly out of place as she stood at the entrance of her school. She would've felt better if another person had had hair as bright as hers, but the only blondes were Peeta Mellark, his family, and the mayor's daughter, Madge, at the end of the hallway.

So instead of running back down the steps and all the way back home like she wanted to, Prim followed her sister's long, swishy braid. Her sister wore dark clothes like the rest of the kids. A dark, soft cotton shirt and dark form-fitting pants with loose areas around the ankles made of a fabric called denim. Prim stares down at her pretty blue dress, the very same one Katniss wore for her first year in the reaping.

And then she feels the stares penetrating down her back as she passes Peeta Mellark and his two brothers, Torren and Emmer Mellark.

She stares at Torren as Katniss stops at her locker. He stands lazily, slumping against the wall. His blonde hair is like Peeta's, but his eyes are chocolate, not blue like his brothers'. Prim feels good that she is at least eight footsteps away from him and his chocolate eyes.

But then her own blue eyes flicker to Peeta's face. He talks quietly to Madge and Delly Cartwright. But his eyes are trained on Katniss. He swallows and turns away when he notices Prim's gaze.

"Alright, Prim. First day, new people, 'kay?" Katniss leans down to Prim's level as they stand a few feet away from the classroom door. Prim frowns nervously.

"You'll be alright," She soothes, just as a nasally sounding bell rings. With a kiss on Prim's head and a shove through the classroom door, Katniss is gone, entering a door a few yards down from Prim's.

But Prim doesn't miss Peeta Mellark's sudden and unexpected bright grin when Katniss bumped into him. And she doesn't miss that he voluntarily grabs her elbow when she wobbles.

_Idiot._ She thinks, closing the door behind her.

~  
"Do you think you could walk yourself home?" Katniss asks, fingering the edge of her math textbook. Prim reaches out and touches her braid, imagining that she could feel everything her older sister felt and had ever thought. But the only thing Prim feels is the soft, thick hair and a heavy strip of black leather that holds the braid in place.

"I know the route, and I can say hi to Darius for you." Prim says politely, already turning on her heel, stirring up the heavily matted black dirt with her worn shoes. Katniss pulls a hand through Prim's blonde hair and takes out the strip of leather holding half of her hair up. She braids the pieces she holds in her hand and ties it back into place, tugging on the end. She turns Prim around and hands her something, a small package awkwardly wrapped in thin brown paper.

"For you. But don't open it until you get home. You can even invite Lana over, if you want," Katniss says. Lana is Prim's best friend.

"Thank you!" Prim exclaims. She grips her sister hard around her tiny waist before dashing down the dirt path, excitedly shoving the package in a pocket of the black coat that was once her mother's.

"Nettie Carter called you smelly today." Lana Trudgens whispered. Prim's hands, tangled around Lana's heavy black hair, paused momentarily before continuing the complicated do she was trying to figure out.

"So?" Prim managed to speak around that awful lump in her throat. What had she ever done to Nettie? Said hello, maybe once. Smiled politely in her direction.

"Aren't you bothered?"

"No, not really. What does it matter what she thinks of me?"

"That's why you're my best friend, Primrose."

Prim's lips pulled up in a smile. She tied off the end of the braid.

"More strawberries?"


End file.
